The Gap Between Siblings’ Ages May Quietly Shape How Fast the Younger One Learns to Talk, a Large New Child-Development Study Involving Thousands of Families Finds

by
2 women in blue and gray sweaters

Parents comparing notes about how many years apart to have kids usually end up trading guesses — two years feels close, four feels spaced out, and nobody has hard numbers to point to. Child-development researchers do have numbers, and a large French birth-cohort study followed more than 12,000 two-year-olds to get them. It found that … Read more

Parents of Kids as Young as Six Years Old Are Now Spending Thousands of Dollars a Year on ‘Resume-Building’ Activities, Fresh Survey Data Shows

by
A group of people sitting around in a kitchen

Parents of a six-year-old on a single youth sports team spent an average of $1,016 on that one activity in 2024, according to the Aspen Institute’s National Youth Sports Parent Survey, up 46% from five years earlier — roughly double the national inflation rate over that stretch. Add a second sport, which the same survey … Read more

Homeowners Nationwide Are Putting Up Fall Decorations Nearly a Full Month Earlier Than They Did Just a Decade Ago, Retail Industry Data Shows

by
a group of painted pumpkins sitting on a porch

If your neighbor’s pumpkins showed up on the porch before Labor Day this year, you weren’t imagining a shift. According to the National Retail Federation’s annual Halloween survey, only 32% of shoppers had started buying fall and Halloween items before October back in 2014. A decade later, that number had climbed to 47%, and last … Read more

These Common Backyard Composting Mistakes Are Quietly Turning Bins Into an All-You-Can-Eat Rodent Buffet, University Extension Experts Warn Homeowners

by
Pile of organic compost with various plant roots and leaves, showcasing vibrant natural colors.

A backyard compost bin is supposed to turn banana peels and grass clippings into free garden soil. For a lot of homeowners, it’s quietly doing something else: running a 24-hour buffet for rats, mice, and whatever else wanders through the yard after dark. University extension programs that field these complaints every season say the problem … Read more

Property Tax Reassessments Are Landing in Mailboxes Across the Country This Fall, and Homeowners Who Don’t Appeal in Time Are Stuck Overpaying for a Full Year

by
a row of colorful mail boxes sitting next to a bush

Millions of property owners are opening envelopes this month that quietly reset what they’ll owe next year, and most of them have less time to respond than they think. County assessors from Illinois to Colorado to Washington State are sending out fall reassessment notices right now, and in nearly every jurisdiction, the appeal clock starts … Read more

One Single Category of Kitchen Appliance Has Been Recalled More Than Any Other Over the Last Five Years, CPSC’s Own Records Show Pretty Clearly

by
black and gray blender

Air fryers have been recalled six separate times by the Consumer Product Safety Commission since early 2022, more than any other small kitchen appliance category in the agency’s own public recall database. Pressure cookers are next, with four recalls logged since 2023, according to the same federal records. Blenders show three. Coffee makers, electric kettles, … Read more

Pediatricians Just Quietly Updated Their Official Guidance on Giving Kids Melatonin Gummies Before Bed, and It’s Noticeably Stricter Than What Most Parents Are Doing

by
woman holding orange and white candy

The American Academy of Pediatrics has quietly rewritten its official patient guidance on giving children melatonin, and the update, revised on HealthyChildren.org as recently as January 22, 2026, is considerably more conservative than what most families are already doing at bedtime. The new guidance tells parents to start at 0.5 to 1 milligram, not the … Read more

Wallpaper Is Officially Outselling Paint in Home Renovations for the First Time in Over a Decade, Industry Sales Data Shows Pretty Clearly Right Now

by
a bedroom with a green wall and a white bed

Architectural paint volume in the United States is on track to shrink by 0.3% in 2026, even as the total dollars spent on it inch up slightly, according to forecasting firm ChemQuest’s data reported by PCI Magazine. Wallpaper is moving the opposite direction. The global wallpaper market is projected to grow from roughly $2.0 billion … Read more

More Parents Are Bed-Sharing With Their Kids Well Past Infancy Than Official Survey Data Shows, Even as Pediatricians Keep Warning Strongly Against It

by
a man and two children sitting on a bed

Nearly half of American parents are still climbing into bed with a child who is well past the newborn stage. A national survey commissioned by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine found that 46% of parents say they sometimes, often, or always co-sleep with a child under the age of 18, a figure that has … Read more

Parents Spend Nearly as Much Time Staring at Their Phones Around Their Kids as Those Same Kids Spend Looking at Screens Themselves, Research Shows

by
a woman sitting at a table looking at her cell phone

Parents spend more time looking at screens than most of them realize, and in a lot of households, it rivals or exceeds how much time their kids spend doing the same thing. A landmark survey from Common Sense Media, conducted with Northwestern University’s Center on Media and Human Development, found parents average 9 hours and … Read more